Union Veterans Held Left Handed Penmanship Contests to Encourage Amputees to Re-learn Writing

If you have studied the lives of Civil War vets, you know about the Left-Handed penmanship contests for right-handed amputees. These contests rewarded those Union veterans who had learned to write with their non-dominant hand. The Library of Congress has put together a page looking at these contests. The originals are from contests held in 1865, 1866, and 1867.

Here is an advertisement for one contest:

In this entry in the contest, the amputee makes an appeal for work that a one-armed man can do. Please read it. The soldier write “The right arm gone, the nation yet remains…” It is a moving piece.

Here the amputee identifies himself as part of the Left Arm Corps.

The same soldier, Alfred Whitehouse, gives a brief sketch of his unit’s service in his left-handed penmanship.

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Author: Patrick Young

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